Improvement in breech-loading fire-arms



NIrED STATES )PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES II. MERRILL, oF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

IMPROVEMENT IN BREECH-LOADING FIRE-ARMS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 33,536, dated October 22, 1861.

To all whom it may concern,.-

Be it known that I, JAMES H. MERRILL, of the city of Baltimore, in Baltimore county' and State of Maryland, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Breech-Loading Fire-Arms; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and eXact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawing, making a part of this specification.

In the specification accompanying an ap plication heretofore made by me for a reissue of certain Letters Patent, originally granted to me on the 20th day of July, 1858, being the third of the reissues asked for by me in lieu of said original letters, I describeaguiding mechanism whereby the plug or breech pin mentioned in the said specification is guided in a given line on its entrance into the bore of the gun, which mechanism I claim, in combination with the levers by which said plug or breech pin is actuated, as will appear byreference to the said specification; but while the said combination answers fully the purposes for which it is int-ended, yet it affords no means whereby the plug or breech pin aforesaid can be taken out of the channelin which it moves without disconnecting the same from the levers or taking to pieces that part of the arm; and the object of my present improvement is to supply such means, so that the plug may be taken out of its channel, cleaned, and restored to `it without separating any of the parts of the arm.

In the accompanying drawing it will be seen that I have copied exactly the drawing accompanying the specification aforesaid, and that I have added thereto the representation of a groove at X X, which communicates with the curved groove fi, and through which groove X X the stud or pin 2 is made to pass when it is desired to withdraw the plug or breech from its channel for the purpose of wiping 0r cleaning the said plug or i'acilitatin g the swabbing or cleaning of the bore of the gun.

To bring the curved groove X X into use for the purpose for which it is designed, all

that is necessary is to press the lever D in which it is cut upward in the direction of the arrow, at the same time the lever C is being thrown open. This pressure causes the stud or pin 2 to enter the groove X X, and being continued the plug or breech-pin isthrown out of the channel of the breech-and may be dealt with as is desired. It is returned to its place by entering the plug or breech-pin into the channel and moving the lever E until the groove X X catches on the pin 2, when further pressure on the lever D brings the pininto its normal position in the curved groove I, when the arm is ready for use, as usual.

Having thus described my improvement and the way in which it is used, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, 1s-

The combination of the groove or analogous contrivauce X X with the groove fi in which the mechanism by which the levers and plug aforesaid are controlled in their movement, as represented in the accompanying'drawing, wherebythe plug or breech pin may be withdrawn from the channel in which it moves, substantially as herein described.

JAMES H. MERRILL.

Vitnesses:

FERDINAND C. LATRoEE, JOHN M. FRIEDRICH.v 

